![]() The current cone is about 4000 years old – which is NOT OLD in my book – and, since I know you’re wondering, it last erupted in 1755. Taranaki itself was first formed in eruptions about 125,000 years ago, but its cone has collapsed at least once since then and then been rebuilt with the detritus of later explosions. Taranaki is the newest in a series of volcanoes that have emerged in the region over the last 20 million years or so – but the crazy thing is how quickly each of these peaks has either collapsed or eroded, forming a chain of jagged lumps and crags that march in a straight line northwest out to the Tasman Sea. If, like me, you’re used to your local mountains being hundreds of millions of years old, it can be a bit shocking to learn how quickly volcanoes are formed, and how young some of them are. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I had a week to wait until Rob and Ellyse caught up with me on the trail, so I decided to take the bus over to the west coast of the North Island to explore Taranaki, the volcano I’d been gazing at on the horizon. The thing about volcanoes is that if you’re not used to having them around, they’re really hard to ignore. ![]()
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May 2023
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